AL Wildcard: 1 and done Twins start strong, Yanks win

Wednesday

Oct 4, 2017 at 5:46 AMOct 4, 2017 at 5:46 AM

Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

NEW YORK — The Twins got the glorious postseason experience they dreamt of on Tuesday, and it was a wonder to behold. Rise-to-the-moment accomplishments, jubilant celebrations, an All-Star pitcher embarrassed and a boisterous, hostile New York crowd silenced.

They'll always treasure those 12 incredible minutes.

Reality intruded quickly, however, and the Yankees asserted the dominance they routinely display against the Twins in October. New York, now 13-2 in the postseason against Minnesota, rudely reminded Ervin Santana and Jose Berrios that they may be the Twins' best pitchers, but neither one has ever won in this ballpark, chasing Santana after two stressful innings and scoring in each of the first four to roll to an 8-4 victory in the winner-take-all AL wild-card game.

Minnesota has now lost 13 consecutive playoff games and 10 of them to the Yankees, a streak of failure dating back to 2004.

Brian Dozier opened the game with his shock-the-pitcher specialty, rocketing a home run near the Twins' bullpen to set off a party in the Twins' dugout. When Eddie Rosario, with Jorge Polanco standing on first base, lined a 1-1 slider from Luis Severino just over the right-field wall, the Twins were delirious with excitement. And when Eduardo Escobar followed with a single, and Max Kepler a double, Severino was suddenly exiled, leaving to a cascade of boos.

But the Twins' joy didn't last long. Chad Green struck out Byron Buxton and Jason Castro to restore the energy to the stadium, and the Yankees allowed their offense and their bullpen to do the rest. David Robertson recorded a career-high 10 outs to stifle the Twins through the middle innings as New York built its lead, and Aroldis Chapman struck out three Twins in the ninth to serve up an anticlimactic end to Minnesota's mostly successful season.

The Twins, a team built around budding stars Miguel Sano and Buxton, lost the former in the morning and the latter four innings in. Sano was left off the playoff roster, the pain in his left shin having sapped the power-generating fulcrum from his bat, and Buxton crashed into the center-field wall to reel in a Todd Frazier blast, a highlight play that came with an unhappy encore: upper-back tightness that convinced the Twins to remove him.

Perhaps losing their brightest young stars would not have mattered had Santana lived up to his tongue-in-cheek Monday boast about making the Twins' first playoff appearance in seven years his own first victory in new Yankee Stadium in seven career starts. But this was not the Santana the Twins have ridden this season, the ace they had lined up for this start since late August.

Appearing nervous and grim, Santana could not find the plate, and the Yankees weren't about to help him. He needed 42 pitches to escape the first inning, 22 more to ride out the second, and he didn't get a chance to throw any more. He faced 11 batters, went to a 3-2 count on seven of them, and the results were even worse when the Yankees finally put the ball in play.

A walk to Brett Gardner and a single by Aaron Judge set up Derek Jeter's successor, Didi Gregorius, for some Jeter-style postseason heroics, and he seized the opportunity. A 3-2 fastball got too much of the plate, and Gregorius punished it into the right-center seats, turning the Twins' stunning 3-0 lead into a tie game. An inning later, after retiring the first two Yankee batters thanks to Buxton's sensational catch, Santana buzzed Gardner with a shoulder-high inside fastball. Gardner got his revenge with the next pitch, curling it just inside the foul pole in right to put the Yankees ahead.

Berrios was only marginally better, giving up a double to the first batter he faced, Gary Sanchez, and a two-out RBI single to Greg Bird. And in the fourth inning, Judge, the rookie whose 52 homers make him a strong candidate for MVP, slugged a long fly ball to left that carried into the seats, a two-run shot.

Minnesota tried to rally, loading the bases in the third inning and scoring a run when Buxton outran a double-play relay. And Joe Mauer batted as the tying run in the sixth inning with two outs and two runners on base. He lifted a fly ball deep into the inviting 316-foot left-field corner, but it fell perhaps a dozen feet short of the seats.

When the Yankees added another run in the seventh, with ex-Twin Aaron Hicks drawing a bases-loaded walk against Alan Busenitz, Minnesota's fate appeared sealed: The Twins were 0-29 in the regular season when allowing eight or more runs.

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(c)2017 Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

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